Augie and I did something new today: we went to an
öppna förskola - an "open preschool" - in the neighborhood. In Sweden, elementary school doesn't start until children are 6-7 years old. In addition, parents have about a year or so of parental leave per child. Thus, you have a lot of parent-baby pairs without much to do. So "open preschools" are set up by churches, neighborhoods, etc., as places where parents can bring their children to play. The babies/kids get to play, and the parents get to interact with other adult humans. "Play" for Augie today meant that I plopped him on a rug and let him commando crawl around to find new toys to play with while I plied a father for information on neighborhoods where we could possibly live and other
öppna förskolan. I didn't take any pictures because I felt awkward enough as is - I didn't know anyone, my kid wasn't blond, I didn't speak the language - without being that parent who takes pictures of everything her kid does. I stand out enough with my Yankee ways and accent; I don't need to draw undue attention to myself.
By the way, can we pause for a moment to consider how awesome
öppna förskolan are? A free place to take your kids to play while you mingle with other parents? A society where family is valued enough that babies and parents get to be together? And that they get to be together in public, outside of the isolating walls of the single family home?
We discovered today that Augie has been getting more solid food into his mouth than we thought. You know how we discovered? Three fascinating new diaper outputs today, one of which we are still talking about in almost reverent tones. I'd say you should have seen that thing, but really, you shouldn't have. Tremendous.
Ahem.
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| If you look closely, you can see his top left tooth peeking out. |
Those pictures are gorgeous, but the video appears to be private, or at least that's what it's telling me. The open preschool sounds phenomenal. I'm beginning to envy your Euro-mom lifestyle!
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